Malabar Farm house to get $500K facelift

Friday

Nov 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2012 at 8:45 PM

The Big House where conservationist and author Louis Bromfield lived – and where Bogie and Bacall were married – will get a $500,000 facelift. Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer said today that a series of improvements are planned for Malabar Farm State Park, located near Lucas, Ohio, in Richland County.

The Big House where conservationist and author Louis Bromfield lived – and where Bogie and Bacall were married – will get a $500,000 facelift.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer said today that a series of improvements are planned for Malabar Farm State Park, located near Lucas, Ohio, in Richland County.

“Our new vision for Malabar Farm involves an approach to agriculture that emphasizes sound environmental conservation practices that will create healthier soil and water, two things that Bromfield always strived to maintain on his farm,” Zehringer said in statement.

The initial focus of the capital improvements will be updating the exterior of the Big House, the home built in 1939 by Bromfield, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Mansfield native. Bromfield wrote, lived and raised his family in the 32-room house. He also entertained many Hollywood stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were married there on May 21, 1945.

The state project, which Zehringer acknowledged is long overdue, will replace rotting boards in the house and paint and restore it to how it looked when Bromfield lived there. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.

A new fulltime farm manager, Korre Boyer of Lucas, a farmer and teacher from Lucas, will take over Monday, Zehringer said. Boyer will work with the officials in the Divisions of Wildlife, Forestry and Soil and Water on the agricultural side of the working farm at Malabar.

The state took over Malabar Farm in 1972. The park attracts thousands of visitors each year.

@ohioaj

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